Schedonnardus paniculatus (Nutt.).
Tumblegrass

Habit:  		Annual, branched at the base.
Culms: 		20-40 cm. tall, scabrous, erect or decumbent at base, leaves crowded at the base, at
		maturity the axis of the plants elongates to over half the length of the plant and the
		scythe-shaped culm turns downward with the tips of the panicle touching the ground.
		Finally the panicle breaks away as a tumbleweed.
Blades: 	2-5 cm. long, 1-2.5 mm. wide, flat, stiff, wavy, smooth, except minutely scabrous
		on the white margins, spirally twisted when old.
Sheaths: 	Loose, flattened, crowded at the base.
Ligule: 	Membranous, 3 mm. long, decurrent down the margins of the sheath.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle half or more than half the entire height of the plant, its axis
		usually falcate, rachis hispid, the 3-13 slender spikes solitary and separated 1-5 cm.
		remote, mostly along the convex side, rigid, and widely spreading, becoming curved in a
		loose spiral, breaking away at maturity as a tumbleweed.
Spikelets: 	Narrow, acuminate, 3-6 mm. long, sessile and appressed, 1-flowered, alternate
		on opposite sides of the long, slender, 3-angled rachis, forming several long,
		slender spikes, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes, not prolonged.
Glumes: 	Narrow, stiff, acuminate, somewhat unequal, hispid on the one nerve,
		margins scarious, first including the awn 2-4 mm. long (the awn about one fourth
		of the length), the second 2.56 mm. long (the awn one third its length).
Lemmas: 	Narrow, rigid, acuminate, 3-5 mm. long, longer than the body of the second
		glume, with 3 green nerves, rounded on the back, minutely hispid on the upper part,
		slightly pubescent.
Palea: 		Narrow, nearly as long as and enclosed by the lemma.
Fruit:  	Grain free within the subrigid lemma and palea.
Habitat: 	Prairies and plains.  July-September.
Kansas Range:	Throughout.
Remarks: 	The spikelets quite variable.